Nokia latest to feel wrath of Jobs

Apple has added another mobile phone manufacturer to its online Dropped Bar Hall of Shame: Nokia.

During his "There is no Antennagate" press conference last Friday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs conspicuously singled out three popular cell phones in support of his argument that all mobile phones suffer from similar, if not identical, signal attenuation when held in such a way as to shield their antennas.

Apple also added a new page to its website entitled "Smartphone antenna performance" that expounded upon Jobs' arguments and included the videos of the three disrespected phones — the BlackBerry Bold 9700, HTC Droid Eris, and Samsung Omnia II — that Jobs had shown during his presentation.

The manufacturers of the three phones quickly reponded to the affront, claiming that Jobs had exaggerated and misrepresented the handsets' performance.

RIM, HTC, and Samsung were joined in the protest by Motorola and Nokia, which both agreed that Jobs was playing fast and loose with the truth. Nokia went out of its way to dig Cupertino's fashion fetish, saying in a statement about itself: "As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict."

Today, the Finns paid for their effrontery. Apple has added a video to the aforementioned web page that shows a Nokia N97 mini suffering from the same degree of signal attenuation that Jobs claims affects all mobile phone.

Don't bother, by the way, going to this video's YouTube page to register either approval or outrage: comments have been disabled.

Motorola's co-CEO Sanjay Jha has also expressed his displeasure at Apple's tactics, telling the Wall Street Journal that his company tested the iPhone and discovered that the Judas Phone suffers from greater attenuation than comparable phones.

As of Wednesday afternoon Pacific time, however, Motorola had not been taken to the Jobsian woodshed — even though it ran an ad in the New York Times last month mocking the iPhone 4's antenna problems.

The Reg can think of two competing theories as to why Motorola continues to escape Jobs' wrath: either Apple is having a hard time getting their hands on Moto's new Droid X, which has been reported to be in short supply in some markets, or perhaps the Droid X exhibits insufficient signal attenuation to make an effective pro–iPhone 4 video, no matter how you hold it. ®